Jimmy Grimes Sr., a lawyer who heard appeals of parking tickets in New Orleans for 18 years even though he had been blind since infancy, died Monday of acute peritonitis and pneumonia at Touro Infirmary. He was 65. "All the time, pictures don't re-create what really happened," Mr. Grimes said in a 1992 interview. "People rely too much on sight, so much so that they wonder how I can come here and decide whether they should pay a ticket."

Jimmy Grimes Sr.

In addition to listening to arguments, he said he relied on input from sighted colleagues.

A lifelong New Orleanian, Mr. Grimes suffered from retinoblastoma, a sight-destroying cancer that afflicts children, when he was 6 months old. His right retina and left eye had to be removed.

Mr. Grimes was valedictorian of his high school class at the Louisiana State School for the Blind. He graduated cum laude from Dillard University and earned a law degree at the University of Notre Dame.